Once Again I Reach
by hophophop
Summary: "My advice? Take a six-week holiday." Until the mistake is discovered, the loss is all you know. This is a revised and expanded story based on some of what I wrote for the July 2013 Watson's Woes challenge. I posted the original prompts as "Doubts Don't Deter Detectives."


_"My advice? Take a six-week holiday."_

* * *

For the fifth morning in a row, Joan woke with a start, unsure of her surroundings. The city traffic sounded wrong until she translated it back into the steady susurrus from the Mediterranean two hundred meters away. She pushed up carefully to rest against the headboard, mindful of the twinge at her collarbone. She didn't remember any dreams, just Sherlock's words echoing in her head, whispered by the waves. "Until the mistake is discovered, the loss is all you know." But afterwards, she argued pointlessly to herself, afterwards there's still no relief, only loss compounded with regret.

She hadn't known she'd dropped the scalpel until she heard it clatter on the tile floor. When Sherlock spoke of finding a mistake, it offered him opportunities and direction for a solution; a path to discovery and closure. Her mistake only widened and deepened the wound: not only was the life irrevocably forfeit, but so too her self-confidence and self-respect, as surely as if she'd excised them with the scalpel along with the integrity of the vein. The closer she examined the mistake, the more she lost. There would never be redemption. More data would never make it better. But then being haunted by what she refused to acknowledge wasn't exactly improvement, either.

* * *

"Okay, that was stupid."

She lay in the gravel at the side of the road, cataloguing the result: scrapes, possible cracked clavicle, sprained ankle...

"Which part?" He squatted down beside her, shifting so that his torso blocked the early morning sun that had been making her squint. She couldn't read his expression through the shadow over his face.

"Getting out of bed this morning?" She tried to push up to a sitting position and was immediately sorry. "Uhh."

"If you hadn't done that, you wouldn't have been with me hiding in the trunk, and we wouldn't have found the bomb, and I wouldn't have been able to try to disarm it while you distracted the killer into hitting that tree, and the shopping center would have been blown up."

"I _would_ miss the Indian place there."

"Yes, you would." He brushed some gravel dust out of his hair and tore off what was left of the sleeve dangling from his jacket. Ripping a strip of the lining, he dabbed at the blood on her forehead starting to drip down her face.

"So it wasn't stupid?" She tried again to sit up, more slowly this time, using his arm for leverage.

"Getting out of bed was not stupid. Agreeing to be my partner, well, I believe an independent review panel might express some misgivings."

"Let's not ask them, then."

He helped her up, and when she was too unsteady on one foot, braced her with one hand on her arm and his other arm around the small of her back. It reminded her of the time she'd tried square dancing.

He was leading her away from the crashed car to the shade of some trees nearby. "How's the driver?"

"Dead. Airbag forced the knife he was holding into his own jugular." He didn't exactly sound satisfied, but there was no regret in his tone.

She felt her joints quiver and collapse, and he stumbled with the sudden shift in her balance. "I did that," she whispered.

"This is no time for swooning, Watson. Apparently I should add seduction techniques to your training regimen."

"Don't," she said, clenching her jaw.

He set his face in stubborn lines, his grip a little tighter on her bicep, making her wince as it pulled on her collarbone.

"If you don't like where the conversation is going, just stop talking. Trying to distract me with some stupid innuendo or blunt sexual comment only pisses me off. And it's not like I can't see right through it."

He pressed his lips tightly as he moved her forward again. He immediately slowed at her sharp intake of breath, and neither spoke until they were on the ground and resting against a tree trunk.

"Come here often?" he asked.

-.-.-

"Watson, he was a coward and planning to harm others, besides."

"Those are excuses."

"I'm not attempting to insult your intelligence by offering justification or any simple equation trading a life for a life."

"But?"

"But wallowing in guilt won't stop people dying."

"Won't prevent me from inadvertently killing. Again. You mean."

"No! This is my point. You did not kill this man. You stopped him from killing others, and in the process, he killed himself because he chose to be armed with a knife."

She dropped her head back against the tree, eyes closed. "Okay. But I can still feel bad about what happened, just let me feel bad for a minute, and then I'll be done."

She felt him sigh in response. With her eyes closed and his silence, she could hear the leaves rustling in the breeze and the occasional tick of cooling metal from the car smashed twenty feet away. He shifted his legs, and she looked over at him. He'd tilted his head back and closed his eyes as well, and she could see the abrasion along his forehead and temple. One hand rubbed his bent knee where his asphalt-roughened pants displayed evidence of his own abrupt exit from the car.

"I'm fine, Watson," he said without turning. "Just some scrapes and bruises. Khaki has its benefits." His phone buzzed and he groped through his pockets to find it.

She sighed back, uncertain if she wanted thicker skin.

"Text from dispatch; EMT's another hour, at least," he said. "Between the parade, another bomb scare, and no immediate danger here..." He glanced at her for confirmation, and she nodded.

"Nothing to do for my collarbone, but I wish I could wrap my ankle with something."

He stood up with a grunt and went over to where she had ended up after the crash to pick up the discarded sleeve of his jacket, tearing it into a long strip as he returned to the tree.

"It's something we have in common, you know."

He looked both wary and skeptical, ready to refute whatever it was she was going to say.

"Assuming responsibility for things we probably can't control. Part ego, part penance," and she held eye contact, daring him to challenge her. "Part coping mechanism," she continued, and he snorted at that, crouching down by her foot and looking up for permission, hands hovering over his knees.

She nodded, not sure what to expect from his first aid skills, but he was careful and deft, gently removing her shoe and aligning her foot into a neutral position before winding the cloth strip in a figure-eight around ankle and arch. When he was done she rested the bound foot on her other knee to elevate it. "Thanks; that's better."

He nodded into his chest as he moved to sit back down beside her, still quiet. The one-sided conversation rankled. "You think you're responsible too," she pressed.

She caught a flicker as he glanced at her foot and heard the slight pop in his jaw as he shifted it back and forth before he eventually spoke. "I am culpable." He swallowed. "For many things. But not his death," nodding toward the car.

"And not me."

"No. I take credit for the fact you didn't break your ankle, as it was my doing that you had proper training to escape from a moving vehicle in the first place."

She took in a deep breath and silently counted to three, then released it slowly through her mouth, like she learned in that stress management workshop in med school.

-.-.-

Sherlock was reading on his phone, distant in his concentration. Hers was missing in action, smashed when she jumped or maybe still in the car. He said he'd taken care of the bomb, but she wasn't so bored she was willing to risk it. Yet.

The day was heating up, the earlier breeze gone. In the still hot air, the cicada whine waxed and waned, and sparrows squabbled in the dust by the road. A bead of sweat dripped down her face, and she wiped it away impatiently. She might not want to gamble on the bomb in the car, but detonating the uneasy silence between them was old hat.

"What are you reading?"

He didn't reply, but given the utter lack of plausible deniability that he hadn't heard her sitting six inches away, she stared at him until he capitulated.

"Article on lost comets." His t's were all sharp tacks, and he didn't take his eyes off the screen.

"What about them? Gimme a break, Sherlock. How do you lose a comet?"

His tension eased a notch. "It's a designation for comets that don't reappear when predicted. Due to interference from another celestial body, disintegration, or miscalculation."

"Something's not 'lost' if you just got the math wrong."

"Until the mistake is discovered, the loss is all you know."

He pulled back slightly after he spoke, and she wondered if he'd heard his words as she did, a low reverberation disturbing dormant memories. She knew he preferred the clarity of knowledge, no matter how painful, but the realization that had transformed tragedy to horror when her patient died continued to blur her perception of who she was and what she should do.

"Sometimes loss is better than knowing," she said, staring at the would-be bomber's car.

The dead man's car.

He turned toward her sharply, eyes hard, and she put up a hand. "No, no, I don't believe that." Wiped more sweat off her forehead. "It's just— sometimes I'd like to believe that ignorance is bliss. Be oblivious for a while."

"'Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,  
Raze out the written troubles of the brain'?"

"Yeah, that'd be nice. What is that, Hamlet?"

"MacBeth. 'Therein the patient must minister to herself,' Watson. Although I suppose I can't argue with the desire for 'some sweet oblivious antidote' as that's the line of reasoning that brought us where we are today." He looked almost amused now, waiting for her to follow his logic. It hit a second later, and she dropped her head, chagrined.

"Wow. I'm really not a sober companion any more, am I. Sorry."

"Not at all, Watson. I wouldn't have it any other way."

-.-.-

After the fifth time she asked what time it was, he gave her his phone. Having a clock in her hand didn't help. The battery was too low to waste on reading or internet browsing. She should have let him teach her self-hypnosis. Of course he was only too willing to wax poetic about any number of topics when she had other things to focus on, but now, when she was surely dying of boredom and a twisted ankle, he was silent. But not motionless, she observed. He sat with knees bent, one hand on each, and the fingers of the left were just barely moving, tapping his patella in some complicated pattern.

"Piano or violin?" she asked a little louder than strictly necessary and was perversely gratified to see him miss a note.

"Bass, actually."

"Huh. Double?" She'd never examined the stacks of boxes and crates in the brownstone's unused rooms; maybe he had the whole orchestra in there somewhere.

"Guitar." And not inclined to elaborate, apparently.

She imagined him as a sullen, angry teen with a torn t-shirt and his first tattoo, playing bass in a cover band. That's who she'd secretly wanted to be then, already too committed to medical school and the path she thought she was supposed to follow to allow for such deviation. Part her had always admired the kids who cut class and hung out behind the convenience store across from school, mocking the rest of them. She envied their bravado.

-.-.-

Tapping the back of her head against the tree brought some distraction from various aches and the interminable wait for the authorities to arrive. Testing the efficacy of Sherlock's bomb-defusing skills was becoming more tempting.

"Watson."

She normally thought of herself as someone with a great deal of patience but apparently that was only true in the presence of upholstery, climate control, and caffeine.

"Watson."

Oh god, why did she have to think of caffeine. Her stomach growled in response, loud enough to tilt Sherlock's head in her direction.

"Watson, _listen_."

It was the most beautiful sound in the world: faint sirens, getting louder. She slipped into a tired smile and pushed up to stand with the help of the tree.

Her smile faded as she looked over the scene and the reason there were sirens in the first place. She'd had better mornings, in every sense. Time to do something about that, she thought, and she smoothed her hair back and hobbled over to wait with her partner by the side of the road.

* * *

Her ankle was mostly healed, but the third time scaling three flights of stairs was half a flight too many, and it started to ache. She didn't want to use the bannister for support as her collarbone was in similar shape, and the additional strain would set it off too. It was sacrilegious to complain about having too much space in New York but sometimes she thought wistfully of the modest layouts of the places she'd called home before the brownstone.

"Are you sure the slides are in this closet? Because this is my last trip up today," she called down the stairwell. There was an indistinct rumble from three floors down in response. She sighed and slowly resumed climbing to the third floor landing. After she first moved in, she'd explored the house on her own when it became clear he wasn't interested in giving her an official tour. The only room they regularly used on this floor was the media room; when she'd peeked into the other two rooms, she saw boxes, furniture, and lots of undisturbed dust. She'd only been in the middle room once since then. It shared pocket doors with the media room, but they were off their track and wouldn't budge.

The other time she'd gone in the room was when she finally had her things moved from the storage unit a few months ago. Sherlock had directed the movers at this end of the job, which meant she knew where absolutely nothing was, and she was happy to remain in the dark about that a while longer. He did have the foresight to keep a path clear to the closet, although there was a bit of a maze of stacked boxes to navigate to get there. The closet's doorknob did not turn easily when she gripped it, and the wood had swelled a bit in the summer humidity. She had to yank quite forcefully, producing a yelp as her clavicle protested and then a shout of surprise and pain when the door popped open and a skeleton fell out and knocked her down.

"Dammit!" She scrambled out from under the bones and the heavy stand that narrowly missed hitting her head. She'd have a good bruise where it whacked her hip.

"Watson?" She could hear his quick steps in the stairwell, and a moment later he was at the doorway peering into the dim room. She hadn't bothered to find the light. She heard him flip the switch a few times to no effect. "Bulb's out."

"You don't say."

He made his way through the boxes to where she sat on the floor, a ribcage in her lap.

"Is this yours or mine?" she asked. "Because mine was packed away in its case when I put the stuff in the storage unit." It certainly was possible that he had his own human skeleton in storage too.

"It seemed a shame to keep it boxed up like that. After I assembled it, I put it in the closet to keep the dust off."

"And then you just happened to forget this fact when you sent me up here."

The pursed lips and shift of his lower jaw confirmed her deduction. He stooped to gently lift the torso off her thighs and placed it on top of a stack of boxes.

"It is a lovely specimen, Watson. However did you come to obtain it? Not typical surgical paraphernalia, is it?" He collected the arms and a tibia as she slid the pelvis to the side and righted the stand, vertebrae swinging unencumbered by its scattered limbs. "Good thing you were there to cushion its fall. Is anything broken?" He anxiously scanned the disassembled bones, apparently unconcerned about her own status.

"It was a door prize. The anatomy department was upgrading and had a raffle at their holiday party my third year." She'd joked that it was her quiet but unhelpful roommate for the next two years, never did the dishes or cleaned the bathroom but didn't mind being entertainment at parties.

By the time she moved to her last apartment she'd outgrown the joke, and then suddenly it became necessary to put away all evidence of her medical career. While that was no longer a strictly enforced policy, being blindsided by the past set her teeth on edge. "Where did you put the case?"

He looked at her, surprised. "Why not just put it back together?"

She didn't reply as she pushed against a stack of boxes to stand, grunting as first her collarbone and then her ankle whined at their mistreatment. She brushed her dusty hands on her legs. "Since you're here, you can look for the slide carousel you wanted now. Put the skeleton away however you like; I'm going to go wash my hands and ice my ankle." She slipped past him, flinching as the end of the shin bone in his hand traced a line across her back.

* * *

After Watson left the storage room, he collected the bones that had fallen out of the closet and methodically reassembled the piece, considering the results of the experiment as he worked. Being among her own things clearly irritated her, although the lingering discomfort from her injuries couldn't be ruled out as a mitigating factor in her short temper. In fact the psychological discomfort she experienced in the aftermath of the would-be-bomber's car crash almost certainly exacerbated her negative reaction to entering this room. It was too bad he'd forgotten the actual skeleton in the closet; that variable skewed the results immeasurably. Nonetheless, he had the data he wanted to collect by sending her up here, even if he didn't know how to proceed.

He'd tried negative reinforcement, refusing to listen to her doubts and self-deprecation, but apparently that served only to limit his exposure, not alter her thinking.

And what was the problem, exactly? She continued to remain committed to their work. She excelled in almost every lesson he set before her. The partnership was all that he thought it could be. But she was not happy.

That gave him pause. Watson was not happy, but she was not unhappy with _him_; therefore, why concern himself? Her dissatisfaction apparently lingered from unresolved aspects of her medical career. She rarely let that unhappiness get in the way of their work. He knew she still found detective work satisfying; if not for the problem in the past, he believed she would be happy. And he wanted that. He wanted her to be happy.

The more he thought about it, the more uneasy he felt: the last time he cared to this extent about another person's emotional state, things did not go well. Obviously Watson was no Moriarty. There was no measure of artifice or coercion in her unhappiness. It was not something he had any control over or any responsibility for or any ability to repair. Nor would she would ever ask.

Now that he considered the situation directly, he observed that he was unhappy because she was unhappy. He muttered a profanity. The most efficient course of action would require venturing into territory clearly marked "No Trespassing." He hefted the reassembled skeleton back into the closet and pushed the door closed. Sometimes an investigator needed to cross a line.

-.-.-

"Watson." He passed her a cup of tea, hoping the prop would be an ice-breaker.

"Thanks." She took the cup without looking up from the book he'd assigned her this week, on shoe construction and repair.

He cleared his throat.

"Hmm?" Still not looking.

"It is now well past the traditional mourning period, and any emotional processing that remains would be better served through action than contemplation." He took a breath as her grip on the edge of the book whitened her knuckles. "You should renew your medical license."

He stepped back as tea splattered across the book. At least he had the foresight to wear a t-shirt he didn't particularly like.

"If this is some unbelievably inappropriate armchair psychologizing—"

"It would be invaluable to our work."

"In what way? I can't recall a single case in which having a surgeon on hand to perform a bypass or remove a tumor would have made any difference."

"Obviously, because we didn't have a licensed physician at our disposal, we never saw such cases."

"Sherlock—" The low timbre of her voice brought to mind another conversation. _I think you know a lost cause when you see one._

"All right, never mind. It would be a convenience, not a requirement. I managed without a surgeon before, I'm sure we will do as well going forward. If you prefer to remain bound to past events, that is of course your choice." He held up a hand to stem an outburst she didn't make. "I for one am in no place to judge, although I thought perhaps my experience might serve as an object lesson to the contrary. No matter; it was just a thought."

"Yeah," she said, and got up and left the room.

-.-.-

He heard the front door slam an hour later and took the opportunity to head upstairs to retrieve the documents he'd left in the media room that he hadn't wanted to collect at the risk of crossing paths with her. On his way up he glanced into her room and stopped abruptly. The closet door was ajar, the bed stripped, and one drawer half open. He entered slowly, as if wary she was going to jump out of a corner and berate him for invading her privacy once too often. But it appeared that last straw was already in place.

He didn't know how long he stood in her doorway, but when he made his way downstairs, he found a note on his keyboard. _I can't be here. J._ A fifth word, _don't_, was heavily crossed out. He lost more time contemplating the potential nuances. A knock on the door pulled him back to his senses, and he was surprised to find the room dark, flickering sensors and power lights the only illumination. His phone buzzed on the table behind him, and he hurried to it. He groaned in frustration at the string of texts from Alfredo as the knock repeated.

When he opened the door, Alfredo looked at him, expectant, and the appointment he'd missed snapped into focus.

"My apologies, Alfredo. Something came up this afternoon that disrupted my schedule. Can we reconvene at the 38th Street meeting tomorrow?"

"Sure. You know I get it about your work. It's just usually you let me know. You okay?"

The answer that roared inside made him blink in its ferocity, but he steeled his spine and nodded brusquely. "I am a bit distracted over a miscalculation I made earlier today. Trying to work out what can be salvaged. Something of a complex problem; it's taken all my concentration."

"Okaaay." Alfredo cocked his head, waiting through a long pause before continuing. "So, do you mind if I come in? I've got something for Joan."

"Ah, Watson is out for the evening. Would you like to leave it with me?"

"Nah, I'll see her on Friday."

Friday! That was not too long to wait. "Good night, then."

Over the next day, his fingers still sent texts informing her of things he wanted her to know which his brain noticed a second too late to stop. The fourth time the text bounced back, number blocked. After a hard hour of internal debate, he determined not to put a trace on her credit card. He couldn't bring himself to smash the phone he'd cloned in case of emergencies, but he left it in the box at the back of her closet.

Passing by her empty room on the way to the bath or the third floor became harder as the week progressed. On the fourth day, he pushed the door open and came in to sit on the end of the bed. From there he could see the stack of books on the floor, all her assigned readings. The shoemaking book was on top, open still to the page with the now-dry tea spatters. He leaned over the edge of the bed to retrieve it.

The author, Violet Ecks, wrote with florid language, unexpected in a text about the curing of thick and thin skins, the construction of lasts, and suitable materials for a sole. However, the parallels she drew between the cobbler and Frankenstein were surprising and, upon further reflection, surprisingly apt. A person he would like to talk to. He could assign Watson the task—

Ah. Just as well further investigation revealed that Ecks had died in 1981.

-.-.-

He missed two more group meetings and conceded to be escorted to the next one. When he opened the door, Alfredo stood on the stoop and gave him his long "is there something you want to tell me?" look but let his silence go unchallenged once more. He wondered what, if anything, Alfredo knew. Those Friday plans had come and gone with no indication to him. Alfredo's lack of questions suggested an alternate source of information, and he couldn't decide whether that made the situation better or worse.

A new case came in, and he got to work on his own as he'd done before, as he'd intended to do after Hemdale. As he hadn't since Watson asked that hospital administrator in the Dampier case to account for his time the night of the murder. Gregson didn't pry into Watson's absence but Bell wouldn't quit with the questions during the long hours staking out the suspect.

"She's moved out," he stated impassively. Bell turned sharply to stare. "I assume, after eight days, she may not be back. I will be happy to let her know you inquired should I ever hear from her again myself." That got him Bell's raised eyebrows and thankfully also his speechlessness.

On day ten, he received a postcard. It was a painting, a still life of a cluttered table, something of a confusing jumble although he took hope from the inclusion of books and a violin rather than rotting fish. On the back was a smudged air mail postmark it would take some time to decipher, the brownstone's address, and a brief note. The painting was owned by a museum in Barcelona, although that was no proof of her whereabouts. He ran his finger across the ink as his pulse returned to normal, irrationally disappointed he couldn't feel her handwriting with his fingertips. _I need to work this out myself. Let me._

He closed his eyes and tried to hear her say those words. Tried to hear her move around in her room, turn the kettle on, yell a greeting when she came back home after running errands. He opened his eyes to a wish come true. She was gone, just as he had hoped that first night on the roof.

_I don't need you_, he'd told her. _I'm finished with drugs_. What an idiot. It was kind of her not to have laughed in his face.

-.-.-

The third time he circled the block stopping shy of the turn that would take him where he should not go, he called Alfredo.

"Hey man, I can't do any stakeouts this week, my sister's in town."

"I— All right." He stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, still holding the phone and pressing three fingers against his temple, fighting his breath through clenched teeth.

"I'll see you at Tuesday's meeting, but gimme a call next week if you need backup then."

Shame burned his throat, but the fear pushed past it. "I— That's not—" he said, barely able to hear himself.

"Wait, what? Where are you? Are you safe?"

The sudden urgency in Alfredo's questions startled him, and he felt foolish, for calling, for not anticipating the effect of the call. For the relief. "Huh. Yes." He started walking again, continuing around the block back to the brownstone. "I haven't— I'm heading home."

"I'll be there in twenty. Stay on the phone. You don't have to talk."

"Yes." In a few minutes he was at the stoop and slowly climbed the stairs. "I'm here." He put the key in the lock but didn't turn it. He stood with his hand on the brass doorknob for a moment, the metal cool against his palm. "This was the first time," he said.

"The first time?"

"Since— Without." He let out the breath he'd been holding and unlocked the door. "On my own."

"Yeah, okay. First time you've called me like this, too. Which is good, all right? This is good. This is the way it's supposed to work. You're not alone." Alfredo spoke quickly, his words carrying his concern through the earpiece, overwhelming.

He left the inner door ajar and sank down to sit on the stairs across from the foyer, setting the phone down beside him, head in his hands. Alfredo's voice murmured up from the speaker, and the silence of the dark house rang in his ears.

* * *

"What are you doing, Joan?"

Why hadn't she left her phone in the hotel room?

"Is that a rhetorical question?" She slid her feet back and forth through the fine sand, digging a trough into the cooler layers. Although technically the off-season, the day was hot and bright with little breeze. She'd already been in the water once to cool off. "You know I haven't taken a vacation in a decade, Mom."

"Is that what you think you're doing? Because it seems pretty familiar to me."

"It does?"

"What happened?"

"I needed a break, okay? I fell out of a moving car and was almost blown up and I've been going non-stop for— well, forever, it feels like."

"I know. I know. But that's just it, Joan. You're still going. Running."

Joan looked out across the water, where the Mediterranean met the horizon in a deep blue line. Strange to her mind that it wasn't the Atlantic. Strange that everyone she knew was behind her, across land and sea. Having no one to turn to was familiar. But this was the first time it was the literal truth. It had been almost relaxing at first, but now she felt alternatively adrift and pulled back. Pulled under.

"You still there?"

"Yes," she sighed. "Fine. What do you think I'm running from?"

"What I think isn't the point. You need to stop and figure it out."

"You don't think that's what I'm doing here?"

This time her mother let the silence stretch out several seconds before sighing. "What does Sherlock say about you being away so long?"

She closed her eyes against the glare and shimmied her feet to get the sand to collapse over and bury them. "Nothing."

"Nothing? I find that hard to believe; he strikes me as a man of many opinions."

"Well. I didn't ask him. I mean, that is, I asked him not to. Opine."

"Oh Joan. Don't do this again."

"What?"

"You're cutting yourself off. You did this after Liam self-destructed, after your patient. Even with Ty."

"This is how I do it. I take care of myself. Look, I've got to go, my phone's about to die."

"Joan—"

"Sorry, I've got to— Bye, Mom."

She flopped back onto her towel, one arm raised to shade her eyes against the sun. She'd paid for her crimes, carried them without complaint, hadn't she? Found one new path, and then another. The right one. She put her other hand up to rub the ache just below her collarbone. Medicine hadn't ever been wrong, exactly; it had been good-enough, until it wasn't. Then she'd let it go, and it wasn't fair that she couldn't shake those last sticky strands loose by herself.

-.-.-

Imaginary apologies filled her evenings at the bistro where she had dinner alone and nursed a single glass of wine with a novel she rarely opened.

_I made a mistake, staying._

_No— I mean, it was unethical; you never got the closure you were supposed to have from the conclusion of the client-companion relationship. I was selfish, and I'm sorry I complicated your recovery that way._

_You were right; I did it for myself. But not just because I wanted to be a detective. I was also trying, always trying, to _not_ be a doctor. Do you understand? The weight of it, of what I did—_

She set the empty wine glass down on the white tablecloth, rolling the stem through her fingers. "I'm sorry," she whispered to the draped table in her mind. _If I'd known, I— I don't know. I don't know what I missed. I don't know what I could have done. I can't see how to move on._ "I'm sorry."

The city was alive and sparkling under the dark sky. She raised her head to gaze across the square, lights and people and conversations, all around her. Any number of mysteries to be observed and deduced, any number of conclusions to be drawn. Possibilities bubbled up like effervescence in the glass of cava she'd tried her first night.

Candace had been a suitable therapist for a sober companion who needed to avoid projection or dependence with clients. Emily had known her well once but their paths had diverged too far for more than history and good will to link them now. Good enough for old friends but not enough to trust with these land mines. Ty was a perfectly nice guy who fit everyone else's expectations for her, and that was so far from what she needed she had to laugh. If Liam hadn't traded her trust for drugs…and there went the laughter.

Sherlock had the necessary acumen along with a terrible bedside manner. Not to mention he'd rather be drawn and quartered than have a frank discussion of emotional matters. Didn't prevent him from hitting the target squarely, however. It hadn't been malicious. He wanted her to be the best she could be.

She'd learned more than investigative techniques from him. She didn't have his swagger, but there was new confidence. Sometimes she even expected other people to envy her attitude now. Could she learn to forgive herself? He couldn't teach that; he was as bad as she in that regard. But maybe they could guide each other through the minefield.

-.-.-

:: You gave me some advice the day we met.

Minutes passed without a reply. After five she had to put the phone down and pace around the hotel room. There were reasons he might not respond immediately that didn't mean he'd thrown the phone off the roof or set it on fire. She did the time-zone math again, not that he was ever likely to be asleep.

_:: 6wk hol_

:: It was terrible advice. I'm coming home early. Or is my room an apiary now?

_:: All same as b4._

:: I'm sorry.

_:: No. Fault mine. CUS?_

:: CUS

-.-.-

She bent to yank the suitcase up over the outer threshold. "Hey, I'm ba—" Her voice trailed off when she turned and saw him at the inner door. Their eyes met and his face faltered for a split second until his gaze steadied on hers, and he opened the door wide.


End file.
